Trump's bigger Africa problem: He ignores a growing food crisis

The need is dire. Where is the United States? (Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin/AP)

President Trump's vulgar comments about Africa are bad enough. Far more disturbing is his lack of action fighting world hunger, especially that continent's famine threat.

The United Nations just sounded the alarm of famine threatening the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This war-torn nation has millions of displaced civilians, many of them farmers. Without the planting of crops, food supplies are nonexistent.

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War victims in the Congo need the assistance of the UN World Food Program, UNICEF and other relief agencies. But funding is dangerously low. Starvation will claim many lives unless we act now.

UNICEF's Tajudeen Oyewale warns that "at least 400,000 children under five have severe, acute malnutrition" in the Congo. "They are likely to die unless they urgently receive health, water, sanitation and nutrition support."

The Congo is not alone in its suffering. South Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia are three other African nations on the brink of famine because of conflict. Mali, Ethiopia and Kenya are also afflicted by hunger from war or drought.

U.S. leadership is needed to defeat famine, as we did in Europe and Asia after World War II. But Trump last year proposed eliminating the U.S. Food for Peace program, our main tool for fighting world hunger. Food for Peace funds the UN World Food Program, Catholic Relief Services, Save the Children and others agencies that fight hunger overseas.

Trump also proposed eliminating the McGovern-Dole school lunch program, which feeds children in Africa and other impoverished nations.

Trump is not doing what a President should do when a food crisis strikes: increase hunger relief funds. Instead, he talks about funding questionable border walls and nuclear weapons, which we don't need more of.

Donald Trump in the White House

America's foreign policy, as stated by George Marshall after World War II, is supposed to be "against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos." Marshall, the architect of winning World War II and winning the peace afterward, knew the importance of food.

In Marshall's time, White House meetings were held on how to fight hunger and devise strategies for building peace. That is what we should be doing now.

The hunger risk is not just in Africa. Haiti, another country which Trump has spoken poorly of, needs food support. So too do Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which are countries vital to our national security interests.

Withholding funding for Food for Peace limits our ability to help refugees and victims of the conflicts in these Middle Eastern countries.

The President should apologize for making those remarks at the meeting and move on. Most importantly, he needs to start enacting a strategy for peace. It starts with food.

The world is watching. We must act and save Africa from famine.

Lambers is an author who partnered with the UN World Food Program on the book Ending World Hunger. He writes on History News Network, HuffPost, The Hill and many other news outlets.